Page 83 of What We Burn

No one joins in.

“Stop singing,” Holden says from the passenger seat, his hands on his ears. “I can’t take it anymore.”

“No,” I say cheerfully, drumming the steering wheel. “This day is far too special and requires us to ce-le-brate⁠—”

“What’s so special about today?” Eli shouts over the top of me. When I glance at him in the rearview mirror, it seems like he’s wincing in pain. Hope he’s feeling okay.

“What’s special,” I say, “is that for the first time since the Obama administration, neither Knox nor Micah is working tonight. Knox is off. Micah swapped his shift. The planets have aligned, the stars have wept, and we’re spending this cosmic miracle”—I spread my arms, clipping Holden in the face and making him grab for the steering wheel—“at lawn bowls. Dinner after.”

“We could’ve spent it anywhere,” Holden says.

“We could’ve. Kitten and I chose greatness.”

Micah’s already there when we pull in, leaning against the hood of his car with a coffee, arriving early and looking good doing it. Knox climbs out of the car first, then Sage is out in a flash, bounding over to Micah.

He catches her by the waist, sets the coffee on the roof of the car, and kisses her—slow, unhurried, his thumb at the corner of her jaw. I watch, because I am shameless and they are stupidly beautiful.

Sign me up for that sandwich.

“Hi,” she says when he lets her go.

“Hey, baby girl.” He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then frowns at the bag over my shoulder. “Is that⁠—”

“A bag of bright pink lawn bowls?” I adjust it on my shoulder. “Why yes, Micah. They are. I bought them for kitten because she deserves sexy things. And I’m carrying them for her because I’m a gentleman. Plus, the pink looks really great next to my teal.” I hold both bags up side by side to demonstrate. Knox scoops the pink bag out of my hand and ambles toward the entrance.

“Traitor,” I call after him.

Knox doesn’t look back. “You were struggling.”

“I was flourishing under pressure.”

Sage snorts and falls into step beside him, bumping her shoulder against his arm and smiling up at him. The late afternoon sun turns the edges of her hair gold. She looks lighter today. Not careless—Sage is never careless—but uncoiled.

I don’t think Glenview Lawn Bowls Club has been renovated since before the Cold War, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. It’s a low brick clubhouse with a green so flat and so aggressively manicured it looks like someone ironed it. There’s a wooden honor board inside listing club champions back to 1962. And the bar has a super limited menu that is mostly just beer. There’s also a framed photo of a man named Reg who, according to the plaque, “loved this club very much” and is presumably now fertilizing the rose bed by the parking lot.

I love it here. In a world of self-checkouts, algorithmic playlists, and fridges that judge your eating habits, Glenview is a brick-and-lawn middle finger aimed at progress. No app. No Wi-Fi. Just a green, a clubhouse, and a roster of people who have been quietly destroying each other over a small white ball since before I was born.

We get our rink assignment from a man at a folding table who looks at our group—Knox alone is a lot to take in at close range—and visibly decides not to ask questions.

Knox posts himself at the gate end with his back to the fence and the whole parking lot in his eyeline. He’s been doing some version of that since the day she came home. None of us mention it anymore.

I set down my bag and take out my woods. Knox hands Sage her pink set, fresh out of the box, and she turns one over in her hands like it’s made of magic and stardust.

We should probably let her out more.

“You hold it in the cradle of your fingers,” I tell her. “And there’s a bias—it curves. So you don’t aim straight at the jack—that’s the little ball in the middle—you aim wide and let it bend back in.”

She nods very seriously, tilts the bowl from side to side to test the weight, and rolls her first bowl directly into the ditch.

There is a beat of silence.

Then I do what any supportive, mature partner would do.

I laugh so hard I have to brace a hand on my knee.

Sage turns slowly to look at me. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” I wheeze. “You love me. I’m delightful.”